Finite and Infinite Games - Simon Sinek

Blog Entry #97

I watched yet another Simon Sinek talk, this time on Finite and Infinite Games. I wish he was allowed an hour to speak because 25 minutes weren't enough to cover all topics, so when you watch the full talk here, you'll notice it's ended abruptly. Nevertheless, there are a lot of fundas to be garnered from his speech, which I've chronicled below.

Simon Sinek starts his speech by describing an incident that happened in the Vietnam War. Though 'Nam launched a surprise attack on the US, they ended up not only losing the war but also 350 times more people in troops! Using this event, he then goes on to explain the concept of finite and infinite games. Firstly, the idea of a game is that you must have at least one competitor. In games that are finite, there are known players, the rules and objectives are fixed and agreed-upon. On the other hand, infinite games comprise known and unknown players, changeable rules, and the primary objective is to stay in the game for as long as possible. If you look at finite vs finite players or infinite vs infinite players, in both cases, the situation is stable. One example of infinite vs infinite would be the Cold War. However, in the case of finite vs infinite, one side is playing to win, while the other side is playing to keep playing. What happens in such a case is that the finite player ends up in a quandary, running through willpower and resources in order to win and close out the game.

Simon Sinek then moves on to exemplifying the same concept in the field of business, comparing Microsoft with Apple. He once went to a Microsoft Summit, where the only talk was of how to beat Apple. When he later went to an Apple summit, he noticed a hundred percent of the executives devote a hundred percent of their time and effort in brainstorming how to help teachers teach and how to help students learn. When he met an Apple employee later that day and told him that he found the Zune better than the iPod, all he received in response was 'I have no doubt.' This helped him realize that Apple is playing the long game. People working there are obsessed with where they're going and are thus an infinite player, unlike Microsoft. As an infinite player, you are only focused on getting ahead and you don't really care about being the 'best' or the 'first.' It would be nice if we played the infinite game when it came to traffic signals. Rather than be the first one ahead, try to enjoy the drive and be a kind-hearted, non-honking soul who respects road rules.

The third section of his speech outlines a set of checklist items one must focus on to be an infinite player in the game, the first being 'having a just cause.' Be clear on why your organization needs you because, without a just cause, you feed people what they want rather than what they need. He urges that the universities focus on teaching skills such as effective confrontation, communication skills, long-term thinking, and building good relationships. The other items on his checklist include 'having courageous leadership', 'trusting in teams'. 'having a worthy rival', and 'keeping your playbook flexible.' On courageous leadership, he insists on a leader believing in their just cause and sacrificing short-term for long-term rather than the other way round. Courageous leaders know the difference between rank and leadership, and accept the responsibility of creating an environment in which people can work at their natural best. This part reminded me of fixed vs growth mindset, wherein Lee Iacocca did exactly the opposite of the traits mentioned above. You can read about mindset here and about Mr. Iacocca here.

Towards the end of his speech, he reiterates about what universities are teaching their students and he is visibly outraged. He is aghast and dismayed when he sees banners and billboards of universities advertising themselves with what starting salaries students get once they graduate. He believes that such advertisements judge superficial things and are not directed toward attracting ideologists who commit their time and energy to impact the world. Unfortunately, the time runs out here and he is forced to end his speech.

Overall, I believe the key things to take away from his speech are the concept of infinite games and how to be an infinite player in life.

Time-logging

Blog Entry #96

Introduction

The previous post talked about starting your own ultralearning project. One of the helpful techniques to monitor your activities was by keeping a timelog. In this post, I'll talk about how timelogging has (or hasn't) helped me.

TBH, tracking every hour of my day made me realize that I was getting a lot more done on good days than I imagined myself to have accomplished. I would've planned to do just 6 tasks the previous night (this definitely helps, but for me, planning first thing every morning works better because I then know my true wake-up time), but I'd end up doing 14 or more in actuality.

Keeping a timelog is fun for me because it entices me to complete more just so I can tick off more number of activities in one hour (can't help it, I'm a 'J' on the MBTI scale). Another thing I do to increase the number of things I get done in an hour is 2 25-minute pomodoro timers for important, time-consuming, focus-based tasks like writing a blog post. Then, I follow that up with three 10-minute timers to get three other shorter tasks done within half an hour.

These 10-minute timers help me sift through emails, get some household work done, make myself a cup of green tea, or just walk around the house to collect my thoughts. Through trial and error, I've figured out that either 2 10-minute timers followed by a focused task of 25-minutes followed by the third 10-minute timer work in some cases whilst 3 10-minute timers on days of high energy help me get done with chores in succession.

“A woodpecker can tap twenty times on a thousand trees and get nowhere, but stay busy. Or he can tap twenty-thousand times on one tree and get dinner.”

— Seth Godin, The Dip

Looking busy and actually doing productive work are very different things. Many times I find myself skimming through articles but not really reading anything. So, I spend the time but don't get any value out of it. Other times, I am able to focus on one article and comprehend the depths of the message being conveyed. Not only that, but I am also able to recall key points from the article at a later time and share them with the right set of people at the right times.

Example

Let's look at a sample timelog sheet taken from Google:

This is pretty much what I also do and it's exciting to see how much you can get done in one hour.

You can also make fancier ones like this:

But frankly, this one appears to be more confusing.

Conclusion

To timelog or not to timelog? That is the question.

Well, it depends on how beneficial this activity is for you. If you're a nose-to-the-grindstone kind of person, you may not need something like this because you're already disciplined. Timelogging helps me and those who feel they've not gotten anything done during the day. Timelogs help you see where your time actually went. You can also view how much time you spent doing various activities. Knowing this proportion can help you plan future activities better. If you feel keeping a daily timelog is an overkill, tryout a weekly or monthly timelog, provided you're able to recall all of the activities you've done in that period. Also, even if you're ultra focused, it might be a good idea to give timelogging a try, as you'll feel a sense of accomplishment at the end of the day.

Happy timelogging!

Start an Ultralearning Project

Blog entry #95

Scott H. Young, an ultralearner and the author of 'Ultralearning' piqued my interest when I came across his blog post that explains how he learnt the entire 4-year MIT curriculum in just 12 months. As someone who enjoys learning and is probably also addicted to it, when I came across the word 'ultralearning', it intrigued me immensely and I had to know what it was.

Scott Young wrote a two-part post on a DIY ultralearning project. I shall attempt to give you a gist of those 2 posts: Part 1 and Part 2.

  

TL;DR

• Part 1
• Figure out what to learn
• Choose a learning format
• Gather preparatory materials
• Part 2
• Set up a focus-friendly environment
• Create an activity/time log
• Meditate

The first part talks about finding the 'what', the 'why' and the 'how' while part 2 talks about barriers to learning. Basically, ultralearning refers to the deep self-education that helps learn difficult things in a relatively short amount of time. It can be thought of as the opposite of dabbling, which is simply playing around with something and eventually learning it, without time or commitment set aside for it.

The 3 steps of starting an ultralearning project include figuring out what you want to learn quickly and intensely, choosing the project format, and preparing to learn the material. For step 1, though it may be tempting to pick multiple subjects, it is important to choose only one and make it a shorter, more focused project with certain constraints, such as 'I will set aside 1 hour every day to learn how to play the guitar for 1 month.'

Step 2 is choosing your project format. Project formats could be one of 3 styles - one, full-time, two, fixed schedule, such as '1 hour before bed daily', or three, fixed number of hours, such as '4 hours every week', but the hours you choose could be random. While deciding on a project format, also ensure to select the total length of time that you will spend on learning.

Step 3 is just as important as actually starting to learn - preparation. Gather the required material and run a pilot test of your schedule to see what works and what doesn't. Design an attack plan, such as 'First, I will watch or read so-and-so, next, I will solve practice questions, and third, I will use the Feynman technique to teach this to myself.' The pilot test will help you understand if you've set too unrealistic a schedule for yourself or not.

In Part 2, he talks about some of the barriers to learning, why people are afraid to start, or don't follow through after starting, and solutions to those problems. If you have a full-time job and you're working 40 hours a week, choose to expand your project longer than 1 year. Quoting Scott Young: "If you know how to finish the challenge while also putting in 40 hours/week on a full-time job, I should be the one emailing you for advice!"

An important thing to remember is that Time is abundant, while attention is not. Hence, make working on your project a habit by setting up a fixed time to invest in it every day. Secondly, choose projects that really matter because the investment of time and effort is relatively huge.

Actually starting on your project involves creating a conducive, focus-friendly environment, and conducting a time log of your activities to monitor your focus. A sample time log would contain a pre-filled time column, such as 7am to 8am, 8am to 9am, and so on. It could contain three other columns too - activity, purpose, and effectiveness. Scott Young spent about 50 to 60 hours every single week on his ultralearning project.

Finally, what's a focus-related blog post on improving focus without mentioning meditation? He recommends meditating in order to gradually better your focus over time. Also work your way through every day via conditioning and self-pep-talk. Ultralearning projects are undoubtedly challenging and intense, but you can reap humongous benefits. Being able to learn something quickly and in-depth is definitely a must-have skill in this day and age of information overload, at least for me. Hope to start an ultralearning project soon enough and post about my experience. Look forward to hearing about your ultralearning project too!

5 Rules by Simon Sinek

Blog entry #94

I recently watched Simon Sinek's Talk to Millennials on 'Change your future'. He shared anecdotes with a moral for each (of course) and stated 5 rules to follow.

TL;DR - The 5 rules you must follow:

1. You can get what you want, but you cannot deny anyone else to go after what they want
2. Take accountability for your actions
3. Take care of each other
4. Learn the skill to keep your opinions to yourself
5. You deserve a Styrofoam cup

He started his speech with 'There are two ways to see the world.' The anecdote went as follows: He was standing at a fair with his friend when they saw a number of people forming a line in front of a free bagel stand. While he saw the free bagel, his friend could only see the line. So no matter how many times he repeated 'free bagel' with more emphasis each time, his friend could only stick with 'no, I don't want to wait in line'. So what Simon did was simply walk up to the front of the line, grab two bagels from the 100 that were there and give one to his friend. Here's where he quoted his first rule, where he also mentioned that there are two kinds of people in this world - one, who can only see the obstacles that prevent them from getting what they want and the other, who see what they want and how they can get it (without denying others from getting what they want).

The second anecdote was a short yet powerful one. In the Renaissance period, it was observed that women died 48 hours after giving birth. The surprising and tragic reason for this was that, brace yourselves, doctors did not wash their hands! What's more, they refused to acknowledge this for 30 years. So the underlying message here was that sometimes, you're the problem. Learn to take accountability for your actions. The third one was a simple 'take care of each other' story exemplified by Navy SEALs.

It was amazing how Simon Sinek narrated 5 different anecdotes within a quick 15-minute video to convey the underlying one-line message for each of the tales. Story number 4 talked about Nelson Mandela's father, a tribal chief. Mandela, during his childhood, observed 2 things from his father during meetings - one, they would always sit in a circle, and two, his father was always the last to speak. The rule here is to keep your opinions to yourself, and not nod 'yes' if and when you agree with somebody. I've found this skill important because what happens with me is that if I stop nodding 'yes' after a bout of continuous nodding, the speaker immediately senses that I no longer agree with them on the point they've just made.

Finally, the last story talks about how his friend, when he held a top position at a firm, was given a warm welcome, a car with a driver to have him picked up and dropped to and from the airport, to and from the hotel, and a ceramic cup for him to have his coffee in before his speech. The same set of people, a few years later, had to receive his friend once again, who this time around, held a not-so-high position at his firm. He didn't get a car pickup and drop facility, and for his beverage, all they gave him was a Styrofoam cup! So the lesson here is that the ceramic cup was never for him, it was for the position he held. Similarly, all of us must remember this story about humility and gratitude.

Here's the full speech for those interested: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8l-YpiiBH4o

Same video, but without the bagel story: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mKJ9-OTbanE

Lexicon Subtleties: Antithesis

Blog Entry #93

Antithesis is a literary device to introduce two opposing propositions for contrasting effect. Two similar concepts are paradox and oxymoron. Paradox is an argument which shows inconsistency with logic and common sense. Antithesis is the juxtaposition of two contrasting ideas or words in the same statement to create a contrasting effect whereas paradox is a juxtaposition of a set of seemingly contradictory concepts that reveal a hidden truth. Oxymoron, on the other hand, is the combination of seemingly contradictory terms, such as bigger half, alone together, act naturally, or my favourite: deafening silence!

Example of antithesis:

Many are called but few are chosen.

Let’s look at some examples in Literature:

Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare:

Marcus Brutus and Mark Antony were painted in opposite colors, albeit subtly

A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens:

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times."

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs:

Snow White and the Wicked Witch are always at odds. Snow White wanted to be kind and helpful to everyone while the Wicked Witch wanted to poison her with an apple, thus taking away her beauty and charm.

Lexicon Subtleties: Ablaut Reduplication

Blog entry #92

Why do we say hip-hop instead of hop-hip and King Kong instead of Kong King?

There seems to be an unwritten rule in English that native speakers seem to know almost instinctively. The reason for the above question is usually stated as "Because saying it any other way just sounds wrong"!

So what’s the rule?

Rule: if you have three words, then the vowel order has to be I, A, O (big, bad wolf). In case of two words, the first is almost always an I and the second is either an A or O (little green men, and not green little men).

Fascinatingly, ablaut reduplication isn’t seen just in English. It’s also prevalent in Indo-European languages, wherein the most commonly used letter is 'e’, akin to that of the English language.

Ablaut reduplication pairs words with internal vowel alternations, such as chit-chat, ping-pong, and jibber-jabber.

Other types of reduplication are as follows:

Rhyming Reduplication - boogie-woogie, easy-peasy, and hoity-toity

Exact Reduplication (used in baby talk) - bye-bye, choo-choo, and no-no

Shm- Reduplication (feature of American English with Yiddish roots) - fancy-shmancy

Comparative Reduplication - my balloon went higher and higher, her skin got whiter and whiter

Contrastive Focus Reduplication - I’m awake, but I’m not AWAKE-awake

Related topic:

The Unwritten Adjective Rule:

Adjectives in English absolutely have to be written in this order: opinion-size-age-shape-colour-origin-material-purpose Noun.

A lovely little old rectangular green French silver whittling knife feels correct whereas rearranging the words does not. Also, as size comes before colour, green great dragons can’t exist. This construction creates dissonance in English speakers’ ears. Something just doesn’t sound right. 

Lexicon Subtleties: Phonotactics

Blog Entry #91

Despite English being a unique and whimsical language, it still adheres to certain rules. Apart from grammar, there are multiple components that all work together to create meaningful communication among individuals. These which concern the structure of language, are phonemes, morphemes, lexemes, syntax, and context. Phonotactics on the other hand, is a branch of phonology, related to sonority. Phonotactics are restrictions on the types of sounds that are allowed to occur next to each other or in particular positions in the word

Phonotactic constraints restrict the ways in which syllables can be created in a language. Languages do not allow random sequences of sounds; rather, the sound sequences a language allows are a systematic and predictable part of its structure. Syllables in a word can be split into an onset, nucleus and coda. Onset and coda are optional whereas the nucleus is obligatory.

Let’s look at certain simple rules:

English: 'bl’ is a permissible sequence at the start of a syllable, it cannot occur at the end of one

Conversely, 'nk' is permitted at the end, but not the start

Japanese: consonant clusters like 'st’ cannot occur

German: 'lt' is not allowed at the start, but is allowed at the end

Lexicon Subtleties: Silent letters

Blog entry #90

What are silent letters?

'e' in table is not pronounced. 'e' is the silent letter in table.

'h' is school is silent.

'k' in knee, 'l' in half, 'g' in sign, 'c' in indict are a few other examples.

Origin

Words borrowed into English from other languages:

'Tsunami’ borrowed from Japanese

'Psychology' borrowed from Greek

Before the Great Vowel Shift (see footnotes for reference),  the Germanic language had open syllables with long vowels, meaning the word 'bit' would be said with short 'i' whereas the word 'bite' would be long and would have been something like 'beetuh'. After the GVS, the distinction between long and short vowels in English is more than just length. The eventual elision (omission of sound) of the final 'e' made its modern pronunciation 'byt' with the 'e' becoming silent.

Evolution

Most words beginning with a silent k are remnants of Old English, which was the language that evolved from the Saxons who settled in England around the 5th century. Historically, they were voiced and are still pronounced in modern German words. For example, the word ‘knot’ in English is knoten in German. Despite having the same origins, English lost the initial k sound while German still has it. The assumption is that English speaker simply chose to stop saying them. 

Old English texts comprise several awkward consonant clusters that are difficult to pronounce. Even Shakespeare would have still pronounced the initial k, but shortly after that its use dwindled in modern times. The k and gh was lost quite recently, so the old spellings have stuck. Some of the earlier consonant clusters like 'h' prefixed in words like ‘ring’, originally spelt and voiced as 'hring', disappeared much earlier, resulting in the spelling to also change.

The word ‘knight’ has two consonant clusters and it’s a lot easier to pronounce as 'nyt' than the German equivalent 'knecht', where both clusters are voiced. In some cases, it’s useful to keep the initial k as it helps distinguish one word from another (e.g. ‘knot’ and ‘not’, ‘know’ and ‘now’).

Footnotes:

The Great Vowel Shift:

https://guernseydonkey.com/english-language-history-what-caused-the-great-vowel-shift/

http://facweb.furman.edu/~mmenzer/gvs/what.htm

Lexicon Subtleties: Diacritics

Blog Entry #89

Technical stuff first:

• A diacritic (aka accent) is a glyph added to a letter or basic glyph
• A glyph is an elemental symbol within an agreed set of symbols intended to represent a readable character
• Some diacritical marks, such as the acute ( ´ ) and grave ( ` ), are often called accents. 
• Diacritical marks may appear above or below a letter, or in some other position such as within the letter or between two letters

Examples:

Hindi:

What we call 'maatras' when we learn 'Barakhadi' are nothing but diacritics. They are compound letters having vowels combined with consonants to change the sound of the basic letter:

English:

Acute: Resumé or résumé (rehz-yoo-may) is used for a work summary versus resume, which means "to begin again"

Grave: à la carte, crème de la crème

Both: déjà vu

Circumflex:  château, crêpe, maître d'

Other languages:

German: Umlaut - tschüss (goodbye)

Spanish: Tilde - mañana (tomorrow)

French: Cedilla - garçon (boy)

Purpose:

Used for additional sounds, in place of adding distinct letters to the alphabet

Aids pronunciation (such as apostrophes used to shorten two words into one - "don't")

Indicates other information about the pronunciation of words such as stress, tone or vowel length

Footnote:

Types of diacritics

Lexicon Subtleties: Allusion

Blog Entry #88

The first time I came across this word, I thought it was a typo of illusion! But this one’s an easy figure of speech - to allude to something simply means to make a reference to something. Allusions help to quickly create a visual imagery of the scene, provided you’re aware of the context being referred to. It can also aid in making your point quickly and effectively.

Let’s look at an example of allusion from a song written by one of my all-time favourite artists, Taylor Swift. Her hit single Love Story goes like this: 

"That you were Romeo, you were throwin’ pebbles

And my daddy said, "Stay away from Juliet"

Another way to hint at something and expect the other person to understand what we are referencing would be to simply say 'Chocolate is his Kryptonite' rather than explaining what the person’s weakness is. 

We come across allusions a lot in our daily lives. You might hear people say 'My Mom has a Spartan workout routine', or 'Some people are calling me the Tiger Woods of miniature golf' or a very common allusion of ’You don’t have to be Albert Einstein to understand poetry'. I’ve observed that people mostly allude to famous personalities or well-known superheroes and their traits. It’s interesting to note that people allude differently based on the city they hail from. For instance, I’ve not seen anyone other than Mumbaikars allude to the punctual train schedule or the bus conductor yelling in Marathi to everyone.

A couple of my favourite allusions are "Don Quixote" and "Pandora’s Box", probably because I’ve studied these lessons in my fifth grade at school.